Knowledge Management in Defence

WASHINGTON (CNN) – It did not take long for Facebook users to respond to U.S. General Ray Odierno’s Sunday appearance on CNN’s State of the Union.

In less than seven hours, Odierno has increased the number of “supporters” connected to his new Facebook page by more than a factor of ten.

When his CNN interview initially aired Sunday morning, Odierno had roughly 70 followers on the social networking site and by Sunday afternoon, the general has nearly 900.

The U.S. military commander in Iraq told CNN’s John King that he was excited about using the site to get the word out about what American troops are accomplishing.

“I think it’s important that people can reach out and ask questions,” Odierno said of his new Facebook page. “Maybe [I can] educate them a little bit more on what’s going on here in Iraq and get to know us a little bit better.”

“This is new for me. This is new ground so we’ll see how it goes. But I’m actually pretty excited about it.”